There are a lot of articles around that explain that relations (tables) should be normalized (an article by Mike Hillyer will get you started) before you can store them in a relational database. The complete normalization process consists of two steps:

1. 
   
2. elimination of multi-valued attributes ('at most one value per column')
   
3. elimination of redundancy ('no duplication of data')
   

Although these are two distinct activities that solve different problems, the methods used to perform them have a great deal in common. In both cases, some columns from the original table are moved to a new table, and a foreign key relationship is constructed to be able to relate the two tables.

The …

I just tried to upgrade my MySQL 5.1 server from the development source tree. Unfortunately, with no success.

First I tried to get the latest updates via BitKeeper, but the links seem to be broken: http://mysql.bkbits.net:8080/mysql-5.0 and http://mysql.bkbits.net:8080/mysql-5.1-new.

So I decided to download the latest nightly snapshot and got me the file http://downloads.mysql.com/snapshots/mysql-5.1/mysql-5.1.10-beta-nightly-20060415.tar.gz. I extracted the file with "tar xvfz mysql-5.1.10-beta-nightly-20060415.tar.gz" (which worked without problems) and changed into the just created directory. From there, I tried to compile the source code:

…

The bulk of the OS2 code I removed last week, but since then I have found a few more thousand lines of code that needed to be removed. All of this is a rat's nest of #ifdef which will all soon to be gone. Its given me a good chance to look over a lot of code I have not touched in a while.

Inside of the MySQL server there are essentially three ports. Unix, Windows, and Netware. There are also remnants of DOS, VMS, UnixWare, and then a few other pieces laying around. Things like ifdefs around CYGWIN (which doesn't work, and we don't support it) and some pieces to support the old mit-pthreads library. Most of this is decently documented in the code but it is still there.

Why not just leave it?

1) More code for a new developer to look at and consider. An example is this is that I found an OS2 define in the new events code. I am sure that it was copied and pasted.
2) People will think it will work. …

I recently talked about the idea of a different privilege system that separates the host information from the user name. Of course, it would break backwards compatibility and so it's almost impossible to change the current behaviour entirely. Also, Beat Vontobel has suggested that there are situations where it is desireable to have user and host information combined.

However, there might be a (not too complicated) solution. I'm thinking of a separate database that manages the user privileges according to the alternative system. Stored Procedures and Triggers could sync the information in the new database to the mysql schema database - and maybe also the other way around. This would require no changes in the MySQL server at all and every user could decide for himself, whether or not to use the alternative system. And finally, the users managed by the new system should not …

Fast Database App = Hybrid Database App

Ok, so you're trying to figure out which transactional general purpose
database engine is the fastest to build/deploy your app with?

Now, since all engines (in the last 10 years) are MVCC, ARIES, ACID... it's
going to be hard to find a database (or database storage engine) that is a head
and shoulder above the rest... You can find, perhaps up to a 2:1 ratio, for a
specialized situation.

Remember now, TPC benchmarking was invented to standardiz e the test, while
factoring in the cost of hardware — which levels the playing field of
specialized hardware vs. unusual performance.

On the other hand, you might find a database, that outperforms in a particular
niche table design due to a specialized indexing mechanism.

What does all this specialized hardware, indexing or such buy you? …

Fast Database App = Hybrid Database App

Ok, so you're trying to figure out which transactional general purpose
database engine is the fastest to build/deploy your app with?

Now, since all engines (in the last 10 years) are MVCC, ARIES, ACID... it's
going to be hard to find a database (or database storage engine) that is a head
and shoulder above the rest... You can find, perhaps up to a 2:1 ratio, for a
specialized situation.

Remember now, TPC benchmarking was invented to standardiz e the test, while
factoring in the cost of hardware — which levels the playing field of
specialized hardware vs. unusual performance.

On the other hand, you might find a database, that outperforms in a particular
niche table design due to a specialized indexing mechanism.

What does all this specialized hardware, indexing or such buy you? …

Fast Database App = Hybrid Database App

Ok, so you're trying to figure out which transactional general purpose
database engine is the fastest to build/deploy your app with?

Now, since all engines (in the last 10 years) are MVCC, ARIES, ACID... it's
going to be hard to find a database (or database storage engine) that is a head
and shoulder above the rest... You can find, perhaps up to a 2:1 ratio, for a
specialized situation.

Remember now, TPC benchmarking was invented to standardiz e the test, while
factoring in the cost of hardware — which levels the playing field of
specialized hardware vs. unusual performance.

On the other hand, you might find a database, that outperforms in a particular
niche table design due to a specialized indexing mechanism.

What does all this specialized hardware, indexing or such buy you? …

Fast Database App = Hybrid Database App

Ok, so you're trying to figure out which transactional general purpose
database engine is the fastest to build/deploy your app with?

Now, since all engines (in the last 10 years) are MVCC, ARIES, ACID... it's
going to be hard to find a database (or database storage engine) that is a head
and shoulder above the rest... You can find, perhaps up to a 2:1 ratio, for a
specialized situation.

Remember now, TPC benchmarking was invented to standardiz e the test, while
factoring in the cost of hardware — which levels the playing field of
specialized hardware vs. unusual performance.

On the other hand, you might find a database, that outperforms in a particular
niche table design due to a specialized indexing mechanism.

What does all this specialized hardware, indexing or such buy you? …

Jim Starkey, who joined MySQL in January as part of our acquisition of his company Netfrastructure, will be speaking at the MySQL Users Conference on April 27 in Santa Clara on the new transactional storage engine that he's developed.  Jim is a veteran of the database industry for more than 30 years.  He pretty much invented some of the most significant innovations in the industry including blobs, event alerters, multi-version concurrency control and more.  He's also an avid boater, pilot and all 'round nice guy despite his reputation for being a "big bad wolf" in the open source world.   

We'll have sessions on many storage engines including MyISAM, InnoDB and others.  Last year we had 1300 attendees at the conference and many tutorials sold out.  We're on track to surpass last year's attendance and the exhibits area is virtually …

The Boston MySQL meetup this past week was well attended. At one point I counted just over 50 folks. Thanks to MIT for the space and MySQL for the food.

The presentation was excellent, but longer than my tape so to see the full deal you'll have to catch up with Jay's presentation at MySQL UC in April or OSCON in July. There are sections where questions are asked that are hard to hear because of the lapel mic we're using. It makes for much better audio from the speaker, but it's not so good for interactivity. At one point I unplugged the lapel mic to capture interaction at the chalkboard. I suppose if we got really serious we'd have a mixer with an audience mic and a speaker mic. Probably not going to happen. Maybe next time I'll try to unplug the lapel mic every time there is a question from the audience.

The video is on Google . For those …